- Status
N
Nec5
Guest
This is to be expected in an increasingly balkanized nation and in a country where people move often and in a nation with a shrinking number of Christians and I won’t add on to this run on sentence.
J
jilly4ski
Guest
I am not sure I understand the article. My family and I aren’t "linked’ t o a specific parish right now. We moved several months ago, but with young children struggled to find a schedule and routine that worked for us. (The Mass times around us are atrocious) and we would often go to Mass at one of the Grandparents Churches. But we still went to Church every week (and would donate cash when we could). But we were literally splitting our time between 3 churches. Of course with the upcoming birth of our next child, we are going to register soon, in order to facilitate baby’s baptism.
But I am not sure that this qualifies as “news” or even something worthy of study. Wouldn’t a better question be, how many Catholics attend Mass weekly rather than how many are affiliated with a particular parish?
But I am not sure that this qualifies as “news” or even something worthy of study. Wouldn’t a better question be, how many Catholics attend Mass weekly rather than how many are affiliated with a particular parish?
J
JimG
Guest
I know some people who identify themselves as Catholics who haven’t gone to church in decades. Obviously they aren’t linked to a parish!
N
Nec5
Guest
That could be me as well.
J
JimG
Guest
I know a lady who was raised Catholic, but both she and her mother quit going to Church early on. She married outside the Church. I happened to be visiting her in the hospital when she was there for some minor surgery, when the Catholic chaplain came around and asked if she wanted to receive communion the next morning. She said no, which puzzled him, since she had identified herself as Catholic at admission. That surprised me.
A
_Abyssinia
Guest
I heard the second biggest religion in America is ex Catholics. Catholics Come Home campaign encourages those that have fallen away to come back.
J
JimG
Guest
And there are a lot of people like my friend who do not really consider themselves ex-Catholics so much as inactive Catholics. I was surprised that she put “Catholic” down as her religious affiliation even though she no longer attends church. But I’m not complaining that she did!
C
curlycool89
Guest
You do have a point there.
Very-long-term stability is not as much of a thing anymore. People no longer live in the same (parents) house from birth-move out anymore, and when they move out they don’t stay in the first house they buy for the rest of their lives.
Personally I don’t see that as such a bad thing. People are willing to get up and move to a place that has a job or something they’re interested in. We’re a much more mobile society now. There’s been a movement from small towns to cities for a long time, and people are no longer really that obsessed with where they came from (hometown nationalism). I’ve never really understood why people were so nationalistic about that anyways.
G
gus
Guest
Its actually 3rd after Catholic and Southern Babtists
K
Kerry77
Guest
I don’t understand how this number is so high, does it include those who actually go to Mass?
If you have children, you have to join a parish for the sacraments.
If you are older [not to be grim] but isn’t there a concern where you will be buried from, have a funeral mass…
My mother drives me nuts with this. She just wanders from parish to parish, which is fine, one of which is a seminary which holds Mass and Confession, but does not administer sacraments.
I kept asking her to join somewhere so I would know what her wishes were. Which didn’t go over too well. So then I just added her to our family’s registration so at least she is officially part of a parish.
If you have children, you have to join a parish for the sacraments.
If you are older [not to be grim] but isn’t there a concern where you will be buried from, have a funeral mass…
My mother drives me nuts with this. She just wanders from parish to parish, which is fine, one of which is a seminary which holds Mass and Confession, but does not administer sacraments.
I kept asking her to join somewhere so I would know what her wishes were. Which didn’t go over too well. So then I just added her to our family’s registration so at least she is officially part of a parish.
J
jilly4ski
Guest
While practically this is how it works, technically this is not necessary. One’s territorial parish is responsible for the sacraments of those in its boundaries. So if your mother died without being officially registered, then the parish in whose territory she lives would be obligated to give her a funeral mass. Of course, it is easier to get the sacraments if you are registered and go to one parish because they can more easily see that you are a practicing Catholic and who they are responsible for.
Like I said, my family and I are not registered at a parish. We moved and were going to register at one, but the Mass time that we could make quickly became untenable and right in the middle of my child’s nap time, which made him a terror during Mass. So we started attending Mass with my in-laws or my parent’s church, splitting our time between the 3 parishes, because none of them were really ideal. We are going to join a parish in order to facilitate the baptism of our newest child (this summer), but again this shouldn’t really be necessary, as our territorial parish should take care of this. But it could logistically and practically be a pain since registration has effectively overtaken the idea of a territorial parish.
N
Nec5
Guest
It’s a terrible thing if you understand basic human psychology. When an entire society becomes essentially nomadic, any kind of national cohesion or agreement on basic things (like morality) becomes impossible. Afghanistan is a great example. Separate tribes with varying degrees of hate or respect for each other. We’re the only ones stupid enough to think we can unify it. You also end up with the New York effect(people constantly moving around) where people just watch while a woman is raped.
When you have communities that settle in for a while, you end up with a unified front which offers several advantages. Of course, the main disadvantage is that if that unified front becomes corrupt, there aren’t any real alternatives because it’s all unified.
And the small town vs city argument is a cultural issue. Cities breed corruption at a far more accelerated rate than the average rural town. They also offer more opportunities in various ways. Just think of Babylon as an old example and most cities since then follow that example. Smaller towns can have their own problems too (i.e.insular thinking although this type of thinking seems to affect our modern cities equally).
Unfortunately, people today don’t want to hear the truth about these tradeoffs and realities. They would rather believe things are hunky dorry and the things I mentioned are expired ideas drenched in negativity. If only that were true.
T
Trader
Guest
If you register at a parish, they may start sending you Sunday envelopes.
When I moved to Fort Wayne in 1984 I was asked if it was OK to send me envelopes. I wanted to check if I had accidentally registered at an Episcopal parish by mistake. I did not know of a parish that was pro-choice on envelopes.
When I moved to Fort Wayne in 1984 I was asked if it was OK to send me envelopes. I wanted to check if I had accidentally registered at an Episcopal parish by mistake. I did not know of a parish that was pro-choice on envelopes.
B
baker22
Guest
I wonder how big of a deal this actually is.
I would think the age group 18-25 probably has a very low rate of registration. I suppose many of these are still registered with their birth family, but I’m not sure on that.
If not, I would say as many as 80-90% of this group is not registered in a parish.
I know I was in college for 4 years and graduated 5 months ago. I’m not in a parish yet, but working on it. This could account for as many as 10% of Catholics not being registered, which makes up half of this 1 in 5 statistic.
I would think the age group 18-25 probably has a very low rate of registration. I suppose many of these are still registered with their birth family, but I’m not sure on that.
If not, I would say as many as 80-90% of this group is not registered in a parish.
I know I was in college for 4 years and graduated 5 months ago. I’m not in a parish yet, but working on it. This could account for as many as 10% of Catholics not being registered, which makes up half of this 1 in 5 statistic.
M
medicalmatins
Guest
This is immediately what came to my mind when I read the headline. Gee, I thought, I’m in that fifth. I just finished four years of college and started four more of medical school. During college (TAC) I was spoiled with a basilica-sized chapel and three chaplains; during the first two years of medical school, I’m receiving the sacraments at a robust student center.
For this statistic to really surprise me, it would have to find a significant number of Catholics not connected to any community that provided catechesis and the Sacraments.
B
baker22
Guest
But to be fair, my original post basically took all the best case scenarios(or is this worst case?
). That being said, I was just trying to throw out one possible case for why someone wouldn’t be registered. Add in people that have families and have recently moved, etc. and we could be looking at a decent size of this 20% that has legitimate reasons for not being registered.
P
Phemie
Guest
I don’t understand this post.If you register at a parish, they may start sending you Sunday envelopes.
When I moved to Fort Wayne in 1984 I was asked if it was OK to send me envelopes. I wanted to check if I had accidentally registered at an Episcopal parish by mistake. I did not know of a parish that was pro-choice on envelopes.
I’m in a small parish. We only buy envelopes for about 1/4 of our registered parishioners, it’s simply too much of an expense to provide envelopes to everyone when they won’t use them.
We have 450 ‘registered’ families but formal registration hardly ever happens. Once someone is identified as Catholic their name is added to the list since, as the only Catholic parish, we are responsible for all Catholics in our town including the ones who are posted in by the military. Rather than turning down someone who calls asking for marriage or baptism because they ‘aren’t registered’, we simply add them to the parish roll.
We only put out ~100 envelope packets each year. I know some parishioners who donate regularly but since they want no receipts they don’t bother with envelopes.
That said, there are a lot of people on the parish roll who never darken the door. We are still responsible for them.
T
Tigg
Guest
Congrats that you are “soon to be a seminarian!” God bless you along your journey.
One point I’d make is that perhaps nationalism is not the term to use. Many who are family oriented want the stability of the same school, neighborhood and parish for their children. They do want and cherish the closeness of aunts and uncles and other family members who can help in emergencies and be advocates for the younger ones. Worshipping together makes for more solidarity. Kids are flexible, but moving often (because we are a more mobile society) can create stress and a feeling of dis-connectedness within our families.
- Status